We had a tenant in downtown Houston who had some pretty key objectives. They needed a better space. They were in a really bad space in another market and they needed to improve the condition of their environment because recruiting, retaining talent was a very difficult feat for them.

So they came to us and asked, “Hey look, we’ve got five years of remaining term on a lease. Is there anything we can do with this?” And so, we knew that there were high vacancy rates in some of the lower class A product in downtown Houston. We knew of one specific block of space that had been vacant for years and years and years. And so, we knew that if we approached this landlord that there was a great opportunity that they would also not only take our tenant and move them in that space but get them really good concessions in order to make a deal five years prior to the expiration.

“Sure enough, because of the vacancy in that building that landlord was getting zero dollars rent on that vacant space. They were willing to give us a lot of upfront concessions, a lot of free rent so we wouldn’t have a double rent scenario in our existing location, as well as reduce the rent to such a negative rate that the landlord was getting a negative return on that building,” says Clarke. As a result, the tenant was able to design a state-of-the-art space that met their objectives meaning now their space finally supports their business and that’s exactly what they asked us to set out to achieve.

“We were able to cut their space in half so they went from roughly 212,000 square feet to just at 100,000 square feet.  Just in space allocation alone we were able to cut their space in half. But then when you look at the economics of the future we reduced their total occupancy costs by north of 50%. So if you think about that, that’s 50 cents on their dollar that they can reinvest in their people and their business as opposed to paying for office space. The new office environment’s an incredible environment, it’s an environment that gives their people more ability to collaborate, more ability to just be plugged better into their business so they can achieve greater results for their clients.”